On Wednesday October 16th, the Ottawa Citizen published the following letter that I submitted as a tribute to my friend and family member, Neil Collishaw.
“Wednesday, Oct. 16: Neil Collishaw spent his career sharing concrete scientific evidence on the dangers of unregulated tobacco use.
A thank you to Neil Collishaw
This is a thank you to my friend and family member, Neil Collishaw, who passed away on Oct. 10 and fought for tobacco control in Canada and globally.
This week, the City of Ottawa is going to recommend that vape and e-cigarette shops pay a fee to operate, just like tobacco shops. This proposal is way overdue and reflects the need to regulate an insidious product. In the same report is a request to direct the city clerk to write to the premier and the Ontario health minister to recommend an amendment to Section 22 of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017 to include vapour product sales offences within automatic prohibition order applications.
I will not be present at the emergency and protective services committee on Thursday morning as city staff present this plan. I support the recommendations to tackle the sale of a product that is luring youth into tobacco usage and chaining them to addiction that will harm their long term health. I will instead be attending the funeral for Neil Collishaw, former director of research for Physicians for a Smoke-Fee Canada.
Thanks to Neil, I know too much about the damage that tobacco can cause and it’s why I cringe when I see a young person starting to smoke or vape. I feel angry that despite the decades of warnings, health concerns are again getting ignored because vaping presents itself as something less harmful; it ain’t true.
Neil Collishaw warned politicians that we need to understand the harm to our health and regulate and restrict in public places all tobacco products, including vaping and e-cigarettes.
Neil spent his career bringing forward concrete scientific evidence to the general public on the dangers of unregulated tobacco use. To quote health care executive Alex Munter: “Neil was a leader in mobilizing the voices and evidence that led to the bylaw’s adoption in Ottawa in 2001. His knowledge, perseverance, good humour and calm confidence made a huge difference. So many people in our community can breathe freer because of him.”
I have never smoked, so I have not had to go through the agony of quitting but I did watch friends suffer greatly, and those who were not successful succumbed to the damage caused by smoking. Smoking is easy to start and very difficult to quit, which is why we need to break the chain of young persons vaping and smoking.
Thank you Neil Collishaw for what you have done to say no to tobacco. May you rest in peace.
Theresa Kavanagh, city councillor for Bay ward; member of the Ottawa Board of Health”
